Microsoft Wins Reversal of $388 Patent Infringement Penalty

By Geoff Duncan September 30, 2009

Back in April, a Rhode Island jury award Uniloc and its Singapore-based parent company some $388 million in damages, finding the Microsoft infringed on Uniloc’s antipiracy technology in Windows XP and Microsoft Office. Uniloc had been seeking $194 million in damages, but the jury doubled the damage award, presumably finding the Microsoft’s conduct in the dispute. The finding was one of the largest damage awards ever laid down in a civil case.

Now, Microsoft has managed to get the whole $388 million bill tossed: U.S District Judge William Smith has nullified the jury decision, meaning Microsoft won’t have to pay a dime.

The case stems from 2003, when patent holder Ric Richardson showed his patented technology to Microsoft under an agreement that the company would not copy his methods; however, Uniloc later alleged Microsoft infringed on the technology for activation of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Office XP. Microsoft has consistently claimed it used a different method for activating software, and furthermore asserted Richardson’s patent was invalid because the technique was obvious.

Microsoft originally won a summary judgement on the dispute in two years ago; Uniloc appealed that ruling, which resulted in the jury award of $388 million. Now, Microsoft has had that penalty nullified, so—after six years—the companies are essentially back where they started.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Microsoft

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Computing

Sorry, Microsoft — I don’t want Copilot+ reading my DMs yet

Microsoft introducing the Recall feature in Windows 11.

Microsoft is kicking off a new era of PCs -- the Copilot+ era. It's a new category of device designed and built around AI, and the key selling point of a Copilot+ PC is the new Recall feature. I'm not quite on board with it yet, however.

Recall is a collection of several small language models that run on your device all the time. These models track everything you do, from messages and emails you send to where you navigate within Windows 11. And, as the name suggests, Copilot can recall this information whenever you need it, using it as bedrock context for how you interact with your PC.

Computing

Microsoft just kicked off a new era of PCs with Copilot+

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announces updates to the company's Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) tool.

Microsoft is introducing an entirely new category of PCs, and they're all centered around Copilot+. Amid bold claims of AI PCs from industry leaders like Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, Microsoft is kicking off the era of the AI PC with a new set of hardware requirements and software features that allow your PC to go beyond an AI chatbot.

The idea behind Copilot+ isn't to have a few AI features. Instead, the dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on a Copilot+ PC will run several language models in the background of Windows 11 -- all the time. The models will scan you through everything you do on your PC to provide context when you want to prompt Copilot properly. Microsoft calls the feature Recall and says it's like a "sensor for AI."

Computing

A ‘healthy’ PC means using Bing, according to Microsoft

Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 sitting on a table.

Microsoft hasn't been shy about pushing first-party services and apps in Windows, but this time, it's getting a little ridiculous. As reported by Windows Latest, the Microsoft application PC Manager claims you can "fix" your computer simply by changing Bing to be the default search engine.

The change was spotted when using the Edge browser and having, for example, Google as the default search engine. After you run a health check, one of the suggested changes will be to set Bing as your default search engine. If that's how you want to go, there's a button to make it happen.